AMA Patient Champion Network Guide

Call for patients to be recognised as key partners in the African Medicines Agency (AMA)

On 4th – 5th July 2017, the International Alliance of Patient Organizations (IAPO) and the Uganda Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (UAPO) held the African Regional Meeting in Entebbe, Uganda, under the theme 'Harmonisation for Patient-Centred Universal Health Coverage’. This was an opportunity for the community of IAPO’s African members to come together and discuss how patients can engage with the African Medicines Agency (AMA) due to be launched by the end of 2018.

A key outcome of the meeting was the elaboration of a draft joint statement – the Entebbe Statement – calling for a patient-centric African Medicines Agency. The statement highlights the importance of ensuring that patients are placed at the centre of medicines regulatory harmonisation processes undergone in Africa.

Following the regional meeting, IAPO’s African members - provided comments on the draft of the Entebbe Statement, which has been finalised (see page 4). Now is the time to turn this statement into action.

IAPO created this document with the aim of guiding you to use the statement as a campaigning tool, to ensure that patients are recognised as key partners in AMA. It provides a set of tips to help you adapt the campaign to your own national and regional contexts, to ensure that we are maintaining pressure at all levels of decision-making.

At the core of this guide is the use of networks as a foundational starting point. We believe that working together in sub-networks will ensure that policy-makers in each sub-region are aware of our calls for meaningful patient engagement in AMA.

Throughout the campaign, IAPO will be available to support you in developing the networks. As we plan the 2018-2020 IAPO strategy and the 2018 work plan we will be seeking opportunities for building the network through resources and capacity building.